The evolution of Internet and the technical development of digital media have extended audiovisual consumption to multiple platforms. Given these changes, there is a need to ask about transformations of organizations and production in broadcasters. The aim of this thesis is to find out how cross-media television production practices are developed, to determine their organizational implications and to evaluate the impact of digital technology in the multi-platform production process. Cross-media production is defined as a system of work created to facilitate functional interaction between individuals and tools in an organization. This interaction takes place through technical and cognitive resources that configure different networks.
This research is the result of a case study over the 2007-2010 period of Televisió de Catalunya (TVC), a pioneer in Spain in terms of technological development, and an analysis of its programs Club Super3, 3xl.cat, Loops! and Ritmes.clips, which were selected for this study due to their being representative cases of multi-platform development.
The results are presented in two sections that depict the problem at an organizational and production level in accordance with the theoretical perspectives of the Actor Network Theory (ANT) and organizational culture. The data were extracted from a study of the multi-platform offer and an ethnographic study that included participant observation, interviews and the analysis of documents.
The overall analysis of TVC indicates that the organizational structure of the channel has not been greatly altered by the assumption of tasks that require cross-media production because a large amount of the work has been derived from other subsidiary companies of the Corporació Catalana de Mitjans Audiovisuals (CCMA). In relation to the multi-platform services and contents offered, we have noted that Internet plays a central role, teletext has barely developed and the progress of interactive applications for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) has been suspended, and that the specific content for mobile phone consumption is still at an embryonic stage.
We have discovered that organizational culture in the new cross-media environment is undergoing transformation, in which socially manifested values have yet to be totally incorporated in the assumptions of professionals or the general order of production. The analysis of the creation of programs shows that there is no cross-media production system as such, but rather various and ever-changing ones, in accordance with the inherent configurations and circumstances of each case.
The study of programs has made it possible to detect three different ways of undertaking cross-media production in terms of the configuration of its groups, its coordination mechanisms and its production flows, which we have called concentrated, mixed and dispersed production networks. In terms of the level of association between the teams that participate in the production, we have found three levels of association: interaction, cooperation and integration. The first describes a flow of information through uncoordinated, unintentional and involuntary tasks. The second refers to a coordinated, intentional and voluntary association between teams and the third occurs on the basis of a coordinated, intentional and voluntary complementary relation throughout all phases of the product, from the creation of the content until it is broadcast.